


the earth and heaven to you

by aetherae



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Comedy, F/M, POV Multiple, jon isn't related to the sisters, or an attempt at it anyways, rhaegar is an okay dad, the jonsa hercules au that absolutely no one asked for, will update tags as necessary but also: god give me the strength to update
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-02 08:00:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21158276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aetherae/pseuds/aetherae
Summary: Sometimes, finding the place where you belong means trying to join a pantheon of gods or attempting to bargain back your soul from a creep. Other times, it just means meeting the right person. For Jon and Sansa, it's all of the above.





	1. the gospel truth

**Author's Note:**

> i couldn't just take the juicy, romantic scenes from hercules and au it for jonsa. noooo, my lizard brain decided i had to au the entire movie and write it all out. why do i give myself impossible tasks that i know i'm too lazy for?? honestly i... have no answer........ i really just like to make life hard for myself i guess.
> 
> which is to say that while this is 100% an extremely self-indulgent au that probably no one aside from me will care about, 90% of the reason why i'm posting this now while it's still a wip is in the hopes of getting some sweet, sweet validation in the form of kudos and/or comments. i can at least be that honest with myself LMFAO. (the other 10% is because i realized i wouldn't be sticking to one single pov for this and felt that it would be messy to not separate them somehow, so at least that's a sort of legit reason.)
> 
> REGARDLESS, i hope you enjoy!

When Ned Stark finds a crying babe at the foot of a mountain with no one save his wife for miles around, he thinks the sight quite impossible. The fact that they’re at the foot of Mount Olympus in particular doesn’t escape his notice, and he looks around them warily, half-wondering if some god will appear to declare the whole thing a trick and promptly smite them for it.

No god appears though, no heavenly lightning comes to strike them where they stand despite the raging storm, and Catelyn chastises him for standing around gawking as she bends down to pick up the boy.

He looks at the medallion lying on the babe, the front of it engraved with a three-headed dragon. If he didn’t already think the boy some kind of gift from the gods, he certainly does now. Catelyn flips it around as she cradles the babe and reveals something written in High Valyrian. Neither of them are familiar or fluent in the language, but Ned thinks the last two characters spell ‘on.’

“What shall we call him?” Catelyn asks, cooing softly at the boy. He smiles up at her easily, arms stretched out and reaching for her.

“Jon,” he decides. It’s nothing like what’s written on the medal, he’s sure, too plain and northern a name for Valyrian origin. Without being able to read it however, there’s not much to be done.

For all he and Catelyn have tried over the years, they’ve never been blessed with a child of their own. They only came all the way to Mount Olympus for one last, desperate plea to the gods. As he stares at the boy in his wife’s arms, he thinks perhaps they truly did answer their prayers. The sept is not where he usually makes his prayers, but the dragons surely deserve his thanks tonight.

And then Ned watches their new baby boy laugh when he grabs two monstrous snakes reaching to strike, watches him tie them up to swing them around like a new toy, then sends them sailing through the sky with a single toss and gurgling laugh—and thinks he had the right idea of it the first time.

The whole thing just _has_ to be impossible.


	2. go the distance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it is to my great distress that i report that this trick (https://twitter.com/Bunccellati1/status/1189341248185929730) actually works. there i was, struggling to finish this chapter, and then somehow comic sans font gave me the power to write the last few lines i needed. what on earth.
> 
> will it give me the power to continue updating in a relatively timely manner though? only time will tell...
> 
> that said, i hope you enjoy this chapter! (and happy halloween!)

**—15 YEARS LATER.**

“Oh, it’s not all that bad, Jon.”

Jon looks back to where he clipped half the towering stack of hay his father meant to sell against the entrance of the plaza, the trench deep enough to fit him that he accidentally dug into the center trying to stop, and the now-broken handles of the cart they brought down the hay with in the first place. If his father doesn’t manage to trade or sell it all off, he’ll have to lug it back home by hand. Not that it would be much of a problem, but he’d rather not have to all the same.

It also doesn’t help that half their stock is now scattered across the plaza. Every single person here today knows it given the hay stuck in their hair and glares they toss his way. If it wouldn’t cause further problems, he’d dig himself a new hole into the ground and hide.

“… It’s not the worst I’ve done, I guess.”

Sam nods in agreement, kind smile a comfort on his round face, but the hay sticking out from his hair just reminds Jon of how he screwed up. Again. Like always.

Fifteen-years-old and with all the awkward, lanky build to show it, Jon can’t recall a single day where he didn’t break  _ something _ . As a boy, that meant dishes, beds, the occasional toy his parents would attempt to gift him with. (He’s convinced they would live in wealth and luxury if not for all the coin they have to spend on repairs and replacements.) Now though, it means knocking down a tree if he tries to kick it in frustration, or tearing down a wall of their house after running too fast and tripping himself into it. Even when he tries to help—and gods know he does, always eager to lift this or carry that and actually put his ungodly strength to use for good—he manages to screw it up. His parents call his inhuman strength and agility a gift, a blessing, but he can only see it as a curse when he can’t even control it. He knows the others think him a freak or a monster for how easily he ruins what’s around them, and Jon finds it hard to disagree with them.

An outsider in his own right, Sam is the only one who’s never shunned Jon for a strength he can’t control. He remembers coming to town with his father as a boy, being excluded from the games all the other kids would play, and standing off to the side waiting for his father to finish his business, just the same as Sam. Being bigger and loving books more than fieldwork was far easier to handle than accidentally breaking things, Sam joked, but even now it bothers Jon to know the others spurned his friend just for that.

They sit off to the side now as well, trying to cause as little trouble and be as out of the way as possible. As always though, Jon manages to mess up even that.

“Exactly! All we have to do is wait for your father now, right?” Sam asks, a stack of books on his other side. “As long as we sit here, there’s not much else that can happen.”

Sitting perfectly still like a disobedient child being punished. Sam might be perfectly content with reading a good book so long as he’s left alone, but Jon wishes he could be doing  _ something _ at least. Any time he tries ends in disaster though, so he sighs and agrees, thinking that as long as he stays seated, he couldn’t possibly break something else.

But then a discus goes flying high, too fast and high for anyone else to catch, and even if the other boys don’t want him playing with them, there’s no harm in at least getting their discus, right? He can catch it easily, all he has to do is jump, and he’ll hand it back to them like normal, no harm done.

By the time the dust settles, the entire plaza’s been reduced to rubble, and there’s plenty of harm done.

Jon watches as his father apologizes for him for what feels like the millionth time, and for the millionth time, he wonders why his parents couldn’t have been blessed with a better son than him.

“It’s alright, Jon,” his father says as they make their way back home. Jon carries the unsold hay in one arm and their broken cart in the other. Father looks at them with a frown, but Jon won’t be swayed into letting him carry any of them. This is the least he can do after everything. “The others just don’t understand, but they will someday.”

He scowls. “No, it’s not alright! You shouldn’t have to apologize for my mistakes all the time, and there’s nothing to understand anyways! I really am a freak, no matter what I try to do.”

It takes all his concentration not to ball his hands into fists lest he destroy the cart even further. He can’t even have a temper in fear of the havoc he might wreak.

His father sighs, placing his hand on his shoulder. "You're no freak, son, not at all. Come, let's head home. It's time your mother and I told you something."

Jon nods silently. For all the love his parents give him, he thinks there's little else they could say to possibly make this better. He'll just have to be a freak with no place to belong for all his life.

But then his parents tell him an impossible story and leave a three-headed dragon medal in his hands, and he's not sure what to think.

"We found you at the foot of Mount Olympus, with nothing and no one to claim you save for that medal," his mother says seated across from him, his father resting a hand on her shoulder. She reaches up to cradle his cheek, and Jon can't imagine anyone else being his mother. "There's no way to know for sure, but if you want answers…"

"Rhaegar's Temple may have them. Pray to him there, and with any luck, the dragons will answer."

It’s hard, the idea of saying goodbye to his parents, to Sam, to the only home he’s ever known, no matter how unwelcoming it can be—but it’s even harder to go on not knowing, and Jon makes his decision before the night ends. He sets out at daybreak, the journey long and lonely, with nothing to keep him company save for his parents’ love and Sam’s well-wishes. In his heart, he knows he’ll return home soon enough one day. For now, the future lies elsewhere.

Exhausted, filthy, and irritable after walking through one too many storms or barren forests or everything else he had to face on this godsforsaken trek to the temple, Jon wonders if the future held in the palms of a giant stone statue is really worth it.

Rhaegar’s Temple goes unlit at night, and Jon can only squint at the imposing figure seated before him. He remains unfamiliar with the King of the Gods, his parents worshipping other celestials aside from the Dragon, so much so that he would never guess the statue before him is meant to represent fire-breathing flying lizards. Whoever carved Rhaegar certainly must have been devoted to make mere stone so handsome.

He collapses to his knees before him, equal parts fatigue and desperation, and prays, “Mighty Rhaegar, o King of the Gods, I ask you… Who am I? Where did I come from? And where do I belong?”

Truthfully, he’s not sure what to expect. Divine enlightenment seems like a stretch to hope for, but at this point, he’d take a sign pointing him to a certain direction for somewhere to live in peace. Instead, a gust of wind blows, somehow breathing fire into every candle that lines the temple. Rhaegar’s statue almost looks alive in their light. Jon waits with bated breath.

And then the statue spontaneously bursts into flames. He runs towards the exit screaming.

“Now, Aemon, there’s no need to fear a little fire!” a voice booms from above him. There’s no time to even wonder if he’s hallucinating, perhaps so delirious from flame and smoke his dying moments must be spent in a frenzy, as giant stone hands scoop him from the ground, smooth and unnaturally warm. “You’ve the blood of the dragon, a little heat can’t hurt you! Although you  _ are _ mortal, so perhaps my entrance was a bit  _ too _ grand…”

Jon turns around, mouth hanging open, and watches as Rhaegar’s statue moves and talks and  _ lives _ , and assumes he truly is hallucinating as he dies. If this is how his prayers are answered, he thinks he at least deserves some actual answers before his soul is taken to the underworld.

“You— But I’m— I have what now?”

Rhaegar laughs, so powerfully airy it feels like another gust of wind, and gestures at him with his free hand. “The blood of the dragon! You’re my son, and I’m your father! Or Pops, or Pa, or ‘old man’ if that’s more to your taste, truly I’m not picky.”

The man—statue, god supposedly, really Jon has no idea what to think—goes on to weave a tale that sounds not only impossible but absolutely ludicrous. Born to Rhaegar, King of the Gods, and Lyanna, Goddess of the Hunt, Aemon should have spent his eternal celestial life in the clouds high above Mount Olympus with the rest of the gods. Instead, someone robbed him from his cradle and cast him down the mountain, somehow turning him mortal in the process. When the Starks found him and named him Jon, Rhaegar and Lyanna knew they’d have no choice but to watch their little boy grow from afar.

“Couldn’t you have taken me back home? Did you not want me?” he asks, voice trembling just the slightest. Even if he loves his parents with all his heart, even if he hardly even believes this fantastic tale of being a god—being unwanted by nearly his entire home is more than enough rejection. He doesn’t want to hear that his true parents felt the same.

“Of course we want you back home! Your mother and I love you more than anything. But the bastard who stole you turned you mortal as well, and only the gods may reside on Mount Olympus.”

“So I’m just… stuck here then.” Obviously. Somehow though, it’s worse to have it confirmed as truth that he doesn’t belong anywhere here.

Rhaegar clucks his tongue, shaking his head vehemently as he gently sets Jon back down on the ground. “Now, hold on there, son, you give up too quickly! There’s a way for even mortal to become gods. If you can prove yourself a true hero and earn a place among the stars, the gates of Olympus will open for you. Seek out Tormund to the North, and he will train you in the way of heroes.”

His father speaks of it so easily, but Jon can hardly imagine himself becoming a hero. No matter how strong he is, he’s more likely to accidentally hurt someone than save them. Besides, what does it even mean to be a hero? As a boy, he dreamed of being like the Dragonknight or the Builder; now, he thinks those dreams are nothing short of preposterous. But despite his doubts, the gods did indeed answer his prayers, practically instructions on how to obtain what he wants. For a moment, he lets himself imagine it, stepping foot on to Mount Olympus and being welcomed by people like him, loved by them, no longer shunned or outcast or rejected—

He would do anything to have that, even the impossible.

“Alright. It will be a long journey to the North, but I’ll do it. I’ll prove myself to be a true hero, Rhaegar.”

“I told you, there’s no need to be so formal! Call your dear old dad, whatever you like,” Rhaegar says, and while Jon couldn’t possibly be so casual with the King of the Gods, there’s no mistaking the warmth in Rhaegar’s stone smile. “Besides, what’s all this of a long journey? Ghost will have you North in no time at all!”

Jon yelps at the sudden streak of white light that flashes through the temple, closing his eyes for how bright it is. When he opens them, a massive white wolf stands before him. Part of him thinks he should be terrified to see such a beast, but he swears the wolf pants happily before him, tongue lolling out of its mouth and tail wagging speedily. He reaches out a wary hand, gently brushing through its fur, so entranced he can barely even hear his godly father.

“… Of course, I wanted you to have a dragon of your own, but your mother insisted you have a piece of her heritage. You already get all your looks from her—save for your striking jawline of course, you can thank me for that—so I don’t know what she’s talking about!” He raises a brow at Jon, clearly expecting more of his son than just standing there in mild concern. “You do remember Ghost, don’t you? After all, he was made for you.”

It should be a ridiculous question, to be expected to remember the creature from infancy. Indeed, Jon can’t recall ever seeing the great direwolf before. As he scratches Ghost behind the ear though, sees him practically smiling even with his tongue still hanging out, there’s no denying the familiarity. His true father might as well be a stranger, but something about Ghost calls to him from his very bones.

“Sure I do,” he says, and Ghost immediately surges forward to lick him across his face. Jon can barely speak around his laughter. “How could I ever forget you, Ghost?”

The wolf licks eagerly at his face, and Jon would think him more well-trained dog than wolf if not for Ghost’s immense size. And, well, the fact that he can apparently fly. Satisfied with the recognition, he walks a few paces ahead, looking back expectantly at Jon.

“I’m afraid the rest you must do on your own now, Jon,” Rhaegar says from above, and despite the fact that he’s made of literal statue here, Jon could swear the god’s eyes look misty. He hides behind no pretense as he wipes at them with a stone finger. “But know that your mother and I believe in you. We can’t wait to welcome you home.”

His heart swells. Rhaegar and Lyanna might be no better than strangers to him, godhood or no, but it’s heartening all the same. No, perhaps because of it. The gods themselves have faith in him. That alone is more than he ever hoped to ask for.

He hops onto Ghost, spares one more look back towards his father, the king of the gods. It still seems so impossibly strange, but he hopes in time, they’ll be able to rectify that. Once he’s back home where he belongs. “I won’t let you down, I swear it. Please watch over me… Dad.”

With that, Ghost sprints off. Even from the sky, Jon hears Rhaegar’s booming laughter as the temple dims. “‘Dad,’ he called me, ‘Dad!’”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "when is the jonsa even happening???" you ask. if you think about how the actual hercules movie goes, then well... y'know.... the romance really doesn't happen for a while LMFAO.


End file.
